Join us online to hear Catherine Compton-Lilly share her current research, “Microaggressions across Time: A Documentation of Longitudinal Inequity.”

Abstract: This presentation draws on data from a ten-year study to explore forms of microaggression reported by family members as children moved through elementary school and into middle and high school. I open with reflection on my positionality as a former White teacher in a school that served almost exclusively African American children. A grounded analysis of the data is used to identify four types of microaggressions that recur across the longitudinal study. The focus is on microaggressions that were salient to the children and their families. A set of mega-aggressions that were particularly severe and had devastating effects on students’ academic outcomes are then presented. The paper ends with a focus on one student, Alicia, and the cumulation of microaggressions across her school trajectory. This paper reveals inequity as a longitudinal construction involving the cumulation of microaggressions and mega-aggressions experienced by African American students who live in high poverty communities and attend poorly funded schools.